Shōgun

Blackthorne smashed the butt of his hand against the top catch again and again but it would not shift. The women watched helplessly. Finally this bolt clanged open noisily. Mariko tried to cover the sound and Blackthorne attacked the final bolt. His hands were raw and bloody now. The ninja leader outside renewed his fiery warning. In desperation Blackthorne grabbed his sword and used the haft as a cudgel, careless of the noise now. Mariko drowned the sounds as best she could. The bolt seemed welded shut.

Outside the door, the red-spot leader was almost mad with rage. This secret refuge was totally unexpected. His orders from the clan leader were to capture Toda Mariko alive, make sure she was weaponless, and hand her over to Grays who were waiting at the end of the tunnel from the cellars. He knew that time was running out. He could hear the raging battle in the corridor, outside the audience room, and knew disgustedly that they would have been safe below, their mission accomplished, but for this secret rat hole and his overanxious fool of a brother who had begun the rush prematurely.

Karma to have such a brother!

He held a lighted candle in his hand and he had laid a trail of powder to the small kegs they had brought in their haversacks to blow up the secret entrance to the cellars to secure their retreat. But he was in a dilemma. To blow the door was the only way to get through. But the Toda woman was just on the other side of the door and the explosion would surely kill everyone inside and spoil his mission, making all their losses futile.

Footsteps raced toward him. It was one of his own men. “Be quick!” the man whispered. “We can’t hold them off much longer!” He raced away.

The red-spot leader decided. He waved his men to cover and shouted a warning through the door. “Get away! I’m blowing the door!” He put the candle to the trail and jumped to safety. The powder spluttered, caught, and snaked for the kegs.

Blackthorne yanked the side door open. Sweet night air rushed in. The women poured onto the veranda. Old Lady Etsu fell but he caught her and pushed her through, whirled for Mariko, but she had pressed back against the iron and called out firmly, “I, Toda Mariko, protest this shameful attack and by my death—”

He lunged for her but the explosion blew him aside as the door wrenched loose from its hinges and blasted into the room and shrieked off a far wall. The detonation knocked Kiri and the others off their feet outside on the battlement, but they were mostly unhurt. Smoke gushed into the room, the ninja following instantly. The buckled iron door came to rest in a corner.

The red-spot leader was on his knees beside Mariko as others fanned out protectively. He saw at once that she was broken and dying fast. Karma, he thought and jumped to his feet again. Blackthorne was lying stunned, a trickle of blood seeping from his ears and nose, trying to grope back into life. His pistol, bent and useless, was in a corner.

The red-spot leader went forward a pace and stopped. Achiko moved into the doorway.

The ninja looked at her, recognizing her. Then he stared down at Blackthorne, despising him for the gun and the cowardice in shooting blindly through the door, killing one of his men and wounding another. He looked back at Achiko and reached for his knife. She charged blindly. His knife took her in the left breast. She was dead as she crumpled and he went forward without anger and withdrew his knife from the twitching body, fulfilling the last part of his orders from above—he presumed from Ishido, though it could never be proved—that if they failed and the Lady Toda managed to kill herself, he was to leave her untouched and not take her head; he was to protect the barbarian and leave all the other women unharmed, except for Kiyama Achiko. He did not know why he had been ordered to kill her, but it had been ordered and paid for, so she was dead.

He signaled the retreat. One of his men put a curved horn to his lips and blew a strident call that echoed through the castle and through the night. The leader made a last check on Mariko. A last check on the girl. And a last check on the barbarian he wanted dead so much. Then he turned on his heel and led the retreat through the rooms and passageways into the audience room. Ninja defending the main doorway waited till all the red-spot raiders were through the escape route, then they hurled more smoke and fire bombs into the corridor and rushed for safety. The leader of the red-spots covered them. He waited until all were safe, then scattered handfuls of hardly noticeable deadly caltrops on the floor—small, spiked metal balls tipped with poison. He fled as Browns burst through the smoke into the audience room. Some charged after him and another phalanx hurtled for the corridor. His pursuers screamed as the caltrop needles ripped into the soles of their feet and they began to die.